The Saxon Uprising-ARC

Chapter 43


The Saxon plain, near Dresden

Jimmy Andersen had an apologetic look on his face when he handed Mike the radio slip. “More good weather, sir.”

Mike nodded, took the slip and gave it a glance—sure enough: No storm fronts in sight or reported—and tucked it away in a pocket of his jacket. He kept his face expressionless. There were some drawbacks to being a commanding general. You couldn’t crumble up such a message, hurl in to the ground and stomp on it while cursing the fates.

He wished he could.

For one thing, it was cold—as cloudless days with blue skies usually were in the middle of winter. A good snowfall would bring a blanket of warmth with it. Well…not “warmth,” exactly, but it would blunt the edge of this icy air.

Thank God for the jackets and trousers. As far as Mike was concerned, David Bartley was worth his weight in gold. Figuratively speaking, anyway. In literal terms, the youngster was probably worth a lot more than his weight in gold.

The whole division felt the same way. Mike was monitoring the sentiments of his soldiers carefully, not just through the chain of command and what his officers told him but through a separate network that ran through Jeff Higgins and the CoC organizers that he was in touch with.

There were lots of those in the division, as there were in almost any large unit of soldiers in the USE’s army. There were some in the navy and the air force, too, but not nearly as many. The army was where the political radicals were concentrated.

CoC organizers and activists in the Third Division had a peculiar relationship with Jeff Higgins. On his own, Jeff was not and had never been a prominent figure in the Committees of Correspondence. His status in that regard was almost entirely due to being Gretchen Richter’s husband. That meant that he was trusted, of course, but it didn’t necessarily mean his political judgment was particularly respected.

But his status with CoC people in the division was more complicated, because by now Jeff had a lot of prestige as an officer. Just about every CoC and CoC-influenced soldier considered Higgins the best regimental commander in the division, hands down, and at least half of the other soldiers agreed with them. That was partly a function of the Hangman’s reputation; partly a function of the Hangman’s history; partly the result of the battle of Zielona Góra, where the Hangman had borne the brunt of the fighting; and partly because of Jeff’s reputation for using egalitarian command methods.

The end result was that Jeff had his own network through the CoC organizers, which he maintained at Mike’s request. That gave Mike a binocular view of the morale of his troops, something which few officers ever had.

And the morale was good. Very, very good. The troops knew what his plans were, at least in broad outline. But “broad outline” was about all that Mike had himself. Maneuver; keep away from Banér until the weather turns sour; then go right at him—that pretty well summed it up.

They’d been at the first stage of that for three days now, since Banér pulled his troops out of the siege lines. Mike had been worried, at first, that days of marching and avoiding combat would sap his soldiers’ confidence. But, it hadn’t. Most of his troops were veterans and they understood how much of a toll the maneuvers would be taking on their counterparts in Banér’s army. Except those sorry bastards wouldn’t have good winter equipment. Some of them would literally be marching in rags, including on their feet.

In two feet of snow, temperatures that were well below freezing, and enough of a breeze every day to produce a significant wind chill.

The whole experience was weird, to Mike. Almost surrealistic. It was like waging a war in mud, or while encased in gelatin. Everything moved unbelievably slowly.

Both armies knew exactly where the other one was. Mike got regular reports from the air force, which maintained reconnaissance patrols over the area at least twice a day. He also got reports from his own scouts—most of those, ski patrols—as well as from Kresse’s irregulars.

Banér had a lot of cavalrymen, including Finn light cavalry that he used for scouts. The Finns were accustomed to the cold and, in their own way, were well-prepared for it. They kept a distance from Mike’s troops, after a couple of clashes had proved to them that light cavalry were no match for well-disciplined infantry armed with rifled muskets. But they had no trouble getting close enough to provide Banér with regular intelligence as to the Third Division’s whereabouts.

And…in a way, it didn’t matter. What difference did it make if two armies knew each other’s whereabouts, when neither one of them could move much faster than five miles a day?

Mike’s troops had something of an advantage, in that respect, because of their superior equipment and morale. But that just meant they could move six or seven miles in a day. Equipment and morale only took you so far, faced with some crude physical realities.

Two feet of snow was two feet of snow. When your only method of transportation was leg muscles—yours or a horse’s—you didn’t move that fast. Not one man—and certainly not ten thousand. When temperatures were this cold, you had to move carefully and take a lot of rest. You’d damn well better eat, plenty and regularly. Armies of thousands of men with seventeenth century equipment do not zip in and out of fast food joints. Just cooking and eating took hours, and if you skipped those tasks too often you would quickly find yourself in a world of hurt.

The supply trains were taxed even worse. They depended heavily on oxen, and oxen do not move quickly even in summertime. And while large powerful animals like oxen and horses could plow through snow more easily than men could, the corollary was that the huge critters ate a lot more. For every ten pounds of food hauled to the front lines, eight or nine were going to be eaten by the livestock—and you couldn’t shave that very much, or your livestock started dying on you.

You could forget about “living off the countryside.” Saxony had been sheltered enough from the wars of the past seventeen years that an army might be able to do that in the summer and fall. But not February.

Slow, slow, slow. Everything moved slowly.

Johan Banér was in a good mood today. His mood had been improving every day since they pulled away from Dresden.

So had the mood of his soldiers. Siege lines were miserable. Maneuvering in the open in the middle of winter was miserable too, of course, but it was a different sort of misery. As long as it didn’t last too long, it was a pleasant relief. Well, not “pleasant,” exactly. “Less unpleasant,” perhaps.

At first, Banér had been worried that Stearns might retreat south to the Vogtland. That would have been his most sensible course of action. But he’d moved his army to the west, instead, circling Dresden rather than escaping from it. By now, the two armies were approaching the town of Ostra, originally founded by Sorbians.

Again, Stearns was surprising Banér. Had he been the American swine, Banér would have passed to the west of Ostra, but Stearns looked to be passing east of it. If he did, he’d have his army almost at the outskirts of Dresden.

Banér would follow him, wherever the bastard went. That would get difficult, if Stearns chose to flee into more open country. Grudgingly, after several days of maneuvering, Banér had accepted the fact that Stearns’ troops could move faster than his own. Not much faster, but no one moved quickly in winter.

So far, that hadn’t made a difference, because Stearns was such a novice that he’d wasted his advantage by circling Dresden. That gave Banér the advantage of interior lines since he’d begun the maneuvering just outside of the city. As Stearns had moved west, Banér had been able to keep his own forces in step, just a mile or two closer to Dresden.

That was the fumbling of a neophyte—either that, or stupid arrogance. Either way, once Banér could come to grips with him, Stearns was done.

Done as in dead. Banér had received private orders from Oxenstierna the day before, sent in code over the radio. However it was done, the chancellor wanted Stearns removed completely from the political arena. Killed in battle would be best, but “shot while trying to escape” would do well enough. If need be, Stearns could hang himself in a cell in a fit of despondency after he was captured.

The instructions had been another example of Oxenstierna’s annoying habit of lecturing people on the obvious. Banér had had no intention of letting Stearns survive. Had the chancellor instructed him to do the opposite, he would have ignored the instructions. The American troublemaker had been a plague in Europe for quite long enough.

Berlin, capital of Brandenburg

Axel Oxenstierna finished pulling on his gloves. “How much longer, then?”

Colonel Reinhold Wunsch pursed his lips. “It’s a bit hard to say, Chancellor. The problem is rounding up enough wagons. We’ve got the horses and oxen we need.”

Oxenstierna nodded. “We’re in Brandenburg. Miserable place. I’m not surprised there’s a shortage of wagons. So how much more time will you need?”

“Another two days, at least. More likely to be three.”

“That should be soon enough. We’re not really in a hurry and won’t be until we get word from Banér that Stearns is dealt with. The way the up-timer is evading battle, that’s likely to take several more days. But at that point, Colonel—” His expression became stern. “I want the army ready to march, and no excuses. I want to be on the outskirts of Magdeburg by no later than the Ides of March.”

“You’re planning to take the whole army, then.”

“Beyond a regiment I’ll leave here to maintain order, yes. There’s nothing in Magdeburg you could call a real army, and they’ve been negligent when it comes to fortifying the city. Still, they have a lot of industry and they’ll have their backs to the wall. And they’re fanatics to begin with. So I don’t expect taking the city will be that easy.”

The chancellor’s face was stiff and cold. Wunsch didn’t have any doubt what Oxenstierna planned, once he took Magdeburg. The sack that followed would put Tilly’s in the shade. Wunsch wouldn’t be surprised if the chancellor ordered the ground to be sown with salt.

Some of the Americans in the city would survive, if they identified themselves quickly enough. Oxenstierna had already passed orders to his commanders to avoid unnecessary killings of up-timers, if possible. But most of them wouldn’t. It was simply not possible to control a sack once it began, especially if the orders came from above in the first place. The soldiery would run amok, most of them drunk.

No one else would stay alive, unless they took refuge inside the royal palace. Oxenstierna would make sure that the palace was protected, given that the headstrong girl had chosen to put herself in it. No one wanted to see the dynasty go up in smoke along with the city itself, of course.

But that only required Kristina’s survival. Wunsch wasn’t privy to such things, but he also wouldn’t be surprised if Oxenstierna saw to it that the Danish prince died in the chaos. Ulrik had quite outworn his welcome with the Swedish chancellor. The heir to the throne was only nine years old. There was still plenty of time to find a more suitable consort.

Wismar, Germany, on the Baltic coast

“It looks like there’s a storm coming, sir,” said the radio operator, as soon as he entered the headquarters of Wismar’s air force base. “Headquarters,” in this instance, being a fancy term for a one-room officers’ lounge on the ground floor of the airfield’s control tower.

There was only one officer present, as usual. Wismar was a military backwater, these days. The main purpose of the air base was monitoring the weather in the Baltic and the North Sea. In Europe, as in North America, the weather basically moved from west to east. Getting a day or two’s warning of a coming storm front was useful, for the military in time of war even more than civilians.

Lt. Gottfried Riemann levered himself out of the arm chair where he’d been reading a training manual. He was an ambitious young man, and had no intention of remaining a ground crew officer consigned to a wretched post like Wismar. He took the radio message slip from the operator, read it quickly, and then handed it back.

“Well, what are you waiting for? You know the Colonel’s orders. Get this off right away.”

On his way back up to the radio in the control tower, Corporal Grauman pondered the same problem he’d been pondering for weeks.

Was there any way to poison a man and remain undetected?

The lieutenant was the sort of obnoxious officer who insisted that nothing be done without his approval—and then criticized his subordinates for lack of initiative. Not too uncommon a type, of course, but Riemann was an extreme version of it. So extreme that it had only taken him a month to become thoroughly detested by every airman assigned to the base.

Naturally, he was also good at brown-nosing, so his superiors were oblivious to his true nature.

The problem with using arsenic or cyanide was that they were too well known. There was some deadly poison the up-timers knew about called “strychnine.” If you could get your hands on some of the stuff…

He wasn’t even thinking about the message when he sent it. That was old habit by now, something he could almost do in his sleep. He certainly gave no thought to the message’s potential ramifications.

Maybe an accident of some kind. The problem was that the lieutenant almost never got out of that damned arm chair. “Studying,” he called it. The shithead was lazy, too. The only time he exerted himself was to criticize a subordinate for not working hard enough.

The corporal’s thoughts circled back to poisons. Maybe…